Effect of different management intensities on natural and human-induced carbon fluxes in a golf course in northern Italy

Turfgrasses are ubiquitous in urban landscape and their role on carbon (C) cycle is increasing important also due to the considerable footprint related to their management practices. It is crucial to understand the mechanisms driving the C assimilation potential of these terrestrial ecosystems Several approaches have been proposed to assess C dynamics: micro-meteorological methods, small-chamber enclosure system (SC), chrono-sequence approach and various models. Natural and human-induced variables influence turfgrasses C fluxes. Species composition, environmental conditions, site characteristics, former land use and agronomic management are the most important factors considered in literature driving C sequestration potential. At the same time different approaches seem to influence C budget estimates. In order to study the effect of different management intensities on turfgrass, we estimated net ecosystem exchange (NEE) through a SC approach in a hole of a golf course in the province of Verona (Italy) for one year. The SC approach presented several advantages but also limits related to the measurement frequency, timing and duration overtime, and to the methodological errors connected to the measuring system. Daily CO2 fluxes changed according to the intensity of maintenance, likely due to different inputs and disturbances affecting biogeochemical cycles, combined also to the different leaf area index (LAI). The annual cumulative NEE decreased with the increase of the intensity of management. NEE was related to the seasonality of turfgrass, following temperatures and physiological activity. Generally on the growing season CO2 fluxes towards atmosphere exceeded C sequestered. The cumulative NEE showed a system near to a steady state for C dynamics. In the final part greenhouse gases (GHGs) emissions due to fossil fuel consumption for turfgrass upkeep were estimated, pinpointing that turfgrass may result a considerable C source. The C potential of trees and shrubs needs to be considered to obtain a complete budget.

Context-sensitive design in transportation infrastructure: relating tire/pavement noise with wearing course characteristics

A design can be defined as context-sensitive when it achieves effective technical and functional transportation solutions, while preserving and enhancing natural environments and minimizing impacts on local communities. Traffic noise is one of the most critical environmental impacts of transportation infrastructure and it affects both humans and ecosystems. Tire/pavement noise is caused by a set of interactions at the contact patch and it is the predominant source of road noise at the regular traffic speeds. Wearing course characteristics affect tire/pavement noise through various mechanisms. Furthermore, acoustic performance of road pavements varies over time and it is influenced by both aging and temperature. Three experimentations have been carried out to evaluate wearing course characteristics effects on tire/pavement noise. The first study involves the evaluation of skid resistance, surface texture and tire/pavement noise of an innovative application of multipurpose cold-laid microsurfacing. The second one involves the evaluation of the surface and acoustic characteristics of the different pavement sections of the test track of the Centre for Pavement and Transportation Technology (CPATT) at the University of Waterloo. In the third study, a set of highway sections have been selected in Southern Ontario with various types of pavements. Noise measurements were carried out by means of the Statistical Pass-by (SPB) method in the first case study, whereas in the second and in the third one, Close-proximity (CPX) and the On-Board Sound Intensity (OBSI) methods have been performed in parallel. Test results have contributed to understand the effects of pavement materials, temperature and aging on tire/pavement noise. Negligible correlation was found between surface texture and roughness with noise. As a general trend, aged and stiffer materials have shown to provide higher noise levels than newer and less stiff ones. Noise levels were also observed to be higher with temperature increase.

Bitext alignment: building and evaluating a bilingual corpus and translation memory of academic course descriptions

Following the internationalization of contemporary higher education, academic institutions based in non-English speaking countries are increasingly urged to produce contents in English to address international prospective students and personnel, as well as to increase their attractiveness. The demand for English translations in the institutional academic domain is consequently increasing at a rate exceeding the capacity of the translation profession. Resources for assisting non-native authors and translators in the production of appropriate texts in L2 are therefore required in order to help academic institutions and professionals streamline their translation workload. Some of these resources include: (i) parallel corpora to train machine translation systems and multilingual authoring tools; and (ii) translation memories for computer-aided tools. The purpose of this study is to create and evaluate reference resources like the ones mentioned in (i) and (ii) through the automatic sentence alignment of a large set of Italian and English as a Lingua Franca (ELF) institutional academic texts given as equivalent but not necessarily parallel (i.e. translated). In this framework, a set of aligning algorithms and alignment tools is examined in order to identify the most profitable one(s) in terms of accuracy and time- and cost-effectiveness. In order to determine the text pairs to align, a sample is selected according to document length similarity (characters) and subsequently evaluated in terms of extent of noisiness/parallelism, alignment accuracy and content leverageability. The results of these analyses serve as the basis for the creation of an aligned bilingual corpus of academic course descriptions, which is eventually used to create a translation memory in TMX format.

The course of chronic and recurrent low back pain in the general population

Using latent class analysis (LCA), a previous study on patients attending primary care identified four courses of low back pain (LBP) over the subsequent 6 months. To date, no studies have used longitudinal pain recordings to examine the "natural" course of recurrent and chronic LBP in a population-based sample of individuals. This study examines the course of LBP in the general population and elaborates on the stability and criterion-related validity of the clusters derived. A random sample of 400 individuals reporting LBP in a population-based study was asked to complete a comprehensive questionnaire at the start and end of the year's survey, and 52 weekly pain diaries in between. The latter were analyzed using LCA. 305 individuals returned more than 50% of the diaries. Four clusters were identified (severe persistent, moderate persistent, mild persistent, and fluctuating). The clusters differed significantly with regards to pain and disability. Assessment of cluster stability showed that a considerable proportion of patients in the "fluctuating" group changed their classification over time. Three of the four clusters describing the typical course of pain matched the clusters described previously for patients in primary care. Due to the population-based design, this study achieves, for the first time, a close insight into the "natural" course of chronic and recurrent low back pain, including individuals that did not necessarily visit the general practitioner. The findings will help to understand better the nature of this pain in the general population.

Co2-dependent vasomotor reactivity of cerebral arteries in patients with severe traumatic brain injury: time course and effect of augmentation of cardiac output with dobutamine

Failing cerebral blood flow (CBF) autoregulation may contribute to cerebral damage after traumatic brain injury (TBI). The purpose of this study was to describe the time course of CO(2)-dependent vasoreactivity, measured as CBF velocity in response to hyperventilation (vasomotor reactivity [VMR] index). We included 13 patients who had had severe TBI, 8 of whom received norepinephrine (NE) based on clinical indication. In these patients, measurements were also performed after dobutamine administration, with a goal of increasing cardiac output by 30%. Blood flow velocity was measured with transcranial Doppler ultrasound in both hemispheres. All patients except one had an abnormal VMR index in at least one hemisphere within the first 24 h after TBI. In those patients who did not receive catecholamines, mean VMR index recovered within the first 48 to 72 h. In contrast, in patients who received NE within the first 48 h period, VMR index did not recover on the second day. Cardiac output and mean CBF velocity increased significantly during dobutamine administration, but VMR index did not change significantly. In conclusion, CO(2) vasomotor reactivity was abnormal in the first 24 h after TBI in most of the patients, but recovered within 48 h in those patients who did not receive NE, in contrast to those eventually receiving the drug. Addition of dobutamine to NE had variable but overall insignificant effects on CO(2) vasomotor reactivity.

A smooth transition protocol for patients with multifocal motor neuropathy going from intravenous to subcutaneous immunoglobulin therapy: an open-label proof-of-concept study

Intravenous immunoglobulin (IVIG) is the first-line therapy for multifocal motor neuropathy (MMN). This open-label multi-centre study (NCT00701662) assessed the efficacy, safety, and convenience of subcutaneous immunoglobulin (SCIG) in patients with MMN over 6 months, as an alternative to IVIG. Eight MMN patients (42-66 years), on stable IVIG dosing, received weekly SCIG at doses equivalent to previous IVIG using a "smooth transition protocol". Primary efficacy endpoint was the change from baseline to week 24 in muscle strength. Disability, motor function, and health-related quality of life (HRQL) endpoints were also assessed. One patient deteriorated despite dose increase and was withdrawn. Muscle strength, disability, motor function, and health status were unchanged in all seven study completers who rated home treatment as extremely good. Four experienced 18 adverse events, of which only two were moderate. This study suggests that MMN patients with stable clinical course on regular IVIG can be switched to SCIG at the same monthly dose without deterioration and with a sustained overall improvement in HRQL.

Ultrasound anatomy of the nerves supplying the cervical zygapophyseal joints: an exploratory study

Nerve blocks and radiofrequency neurotomy of the nerves supplying the cervical zygapophyseal joints are validated tools for diagnosis and treatment of chronic neck pain, respectively. Unlike fluoroscopy, ultrasound may allow visualization of the target nerves, thereby potentially improving diagnostic accuracy and therapeutic efficacy of the procedures. The aims of this exploratory study were to determine the ultrasound visibility of the target nerves in chronic neck pain patients and to describe the variability of their course in relation to the fluoroscopically used bony landmarks.

A project-oriented course in probability and statistics for undergraduate electrical engineering students

An introductory course in probability and statistics for third-year and fourth-year electrical engineering students is described. The course is centered around several computer-based projects that are designed to achieve two objectives. First, the projects illustrate the course topics and provide hands-on experience for the students. The second and equally important objective of the projects is to convey the relevance and usefulness of probability and statistics to practical problems that undergraduate students can appreciate. The benefit of this course as to motivate electrical engineering students to excel in the study of probability concepts, instead of viewing the subject as one more course requirement toward graduation. The authors co-teach the course, and MATLAB is used for mast of the computer-based projects

Digital signal processing and digital system design using discrete cosine transform [student course]

The discrete cosine transform (DCT) is an important functional block for image processing applications. The implementation of a DCT has been viewed as a specialized research task. We apply a micro-architecture based methodology to the hardware implementation of an efficient DCT algorithm in a digital design course. Several circuit optimization and design space exploration techniques at the register-transfer and logic levels are introduced in class for generating the final design. The students not only learn how the algorithm can be implemented, but also receive insights about how other signal processing algorithms can be translated into a hardware implementation. Since signal processing has very broad applications, the study and implementation of an extensively used signal processing algorithm in a digital design course significantly enhances the learning experience in both digital signal processing and digital design areas for the students.

Demonstration of epitope-spreading phenomena in bullous pemphigoid: results of a prospective multicenter study

Bullous pemphigoid (BP), the most common autoimmune subepidermal bullous disease, is associated with an autoantibody response to BP180 and BP230, two components of junctional adhesion complexes in human skin promoting dermo-epidermal cohesion. Retrospective analyses demonstrated that these autoantigens harbor several epitopes targeted by autoaggressive B and T cells. The aim of this prospective multicenter study was to assess the evolution of IgG autoantibodies in 35 BP patients over a 12-month observation period. Epitope-spreading (ES) events were detected in 17 of 35 BP patients (49%). They preferentially occurred in an early stage of the disease and were significantly related to disease severity at diagnosis. Moreover, in three patients, spreading of IgG reactivity to intracellular epitopes of BP180 and BP230 was preceded by recognition of the BP180 ectodomain. Finally, IgG reactivity with extracellular epitopes of BP180 and intracellular epitopes of BP230 correlated with the severity of BP in disease course. These findings support the idea that IgG recognition of the BP180 ectodomain is an early and crucial event in BP disease, followed by variable intra- and intermolecular ES events, which likely shape the individual course of BP.

Long-term course of lung clearance index between infancy and school-age in cystic fibrosis subjects

Multiple breath washout (MBW) measurements have recently been shown to be sensitive for detection of early cystic fibrosis (CF) lung disease, with the lung clearance index (LCI) being the most common measure for ventilation inhomogeneity. The aim of this observational study was to describe the longitudinal course of LCI from time of clinical diagnosis during infancy to school-age in eleven children with CF. Elevated LCI during infancy was present in seven subjects, especially in those with later clinical diagnosis. Tracking of LCI at follow-up was evident only in the four most severe cases. We provide the first longitudinal data describing the long-term course of LCI in a small group of infants with CF. Our findings support the clinical usefulness of MBW measurements to detect and monitor early lung disease in children with CF already present shortly after clinical diagnosis.

Flow experience during Taiji practice - an oberservational study in healthy subjects

Background: Taiji is a mind-body practice, characterised by gentle and mindful body movements originating from Chinese martial arts. Studies investigating the reasons why people engage into Taiji and maintain their practice routine have emphasised extrinsic motivational outcome related aspects. The relevance of intrinsic motivation (i.e. motivation that comes from inside an individual and is driven by an interest or enjoyment in the performed activity itself) has not yet been examined. The autotelic aspect of intrinsic motivation is an essential precondition for experiencing flow, a state where subjects fully immersed into the performance of an activity report to be highly concentrated, optimally challenged and in control of the action. The aim of our study was to assess to which degree flow was experienced in the course of a 3 month Taiji-beginners class and to examine the relationship between the degree of flow experience at the end of the course and the Taiji practice behaviour. Materials and Methods: 28 healthy subjects participated in a Taiji beginners course (2 x 1h per week for 3 months). Flow values were measured at week 1, 6 and 12 by using the Flow-Kurz-Skala (FKS) questionnaire. Data were analysed by using ANOVA with repeated measurements, students t-Tests for comparison with normative values, and pearson correlation coefficients were calculated. Results: In the course of the 12 weeks Taiji training, mean flow values increased continuously (F(1.34, 8.92) = 19.49; p < .001). The mean value for experienced flow during Taiji practice at week 12 (M = 5.54; SD = ±.77) was significantly above the norm value (t = 3.705; df = 27; p < .01). Since average course attendance rate was high (86.8 %), a ceiling effect is assumed, thus flow values did not correlate with course adherence (r = .236; p = .227). However, a significant correlation was found between flow values at week 12 and practice at home (r = .439; p < .05). Conclusion: Our findings emphasise the potential value of intrinsic motivational aspects inherent in Taiji practice for developing a regular practice routine. The impact of increased flow experience on health related outcome measures, and its relevance in clinical trials is subject of further research.

Stimulation of the subthalamic nucleus at an earlier disease stage of Parkinson's disease: Concept and standards of the EARLYSTIM-study

Deep brain stimulation (DBS) of the subthalamic nucleus (STN) is an established treatment for advanced Parkinson's disease (PD) with disabling motor complications. However, stimulation may be beneficial at an earlier stage of PD when motor fluctuations and dyskinesia are only mild and psychosocial competence is still maintained. The EARLYSTIM trial was conducted in patients with recent onset of levodopa-induced motor complications (<3 years) whose social and occupational functioning remained preserved. This is called 'early' here. The study was a randomized, multicenter, bi-national pivotal trial with a 2 year observation period. Quality of life was the main outcome measure, and a video-based motor score was a blinded secondary outcome of the study. Motor, neuropsychological, psychiatric and psychosocial aspects were captured by established scales and questionnaires. The patient group randomized here is the earliest in the disease course and the youngest recruited in controlled DBS trials so far. The methodological innovation for DBS-studies of this study lies in novel procedures developed and used for monitoring best medical treatment, neurosurgical consistency, best management of stimulation programming, blinded video assessment of motor disability, and prevention of suicidal behaviors.